Monday

We caught the bus around 0845 towards Evje for the first day of canoeing, arriving around 1030. We started canoeing straight away, playing and learning new or existing skills to help us go straight, backwards, sideways and to stop.

Setting up the canoes

It started to snow about an hour in and picked up to a blizzard soon afterwards, this created a mellow feeling to our morale because we couldn’t hear each other to talk, but it wasn’t too cold, which was a huge surprise.

We island hopped before lunch to find somewhere to eat, which was really nice to have the view and shelter from the wind. The water was really calm enough all day, put picked up towards the end of the day, but this was to be expected.

We continued towards our final destination where we had a talk before making our shelters, the shelters themselves we really comfortable, dry and warm, much to our surprise because of all the other awful nights we had due to weather. It started to snow about 2100 when I had woken up from a nap after dinner, it was beautiful to watch as me and my sleeping group were already tucked up in our sleeping bags.

Our shelter

I thought the first day went really well compared to previous trips, as usual I was the last in the group but it didn’t make much of a difference regarding the enthusiasm of the team which didn’t hinder my own moral; making the activity much more enjoyable than skiing.

Tuesday

After waking up from a lovely night sleep, the moss helped a lot, the entire floor was covered in snow making it seem like January all over again, not nearly May, our morale was high regardless because of the sound sleep and nice weather. We headed off at 0900 towards the dam which was out final destination of the canoeing side of the expedition.

View from the shelter

The weather thankfully was on and off sunshine, no rain or snow, but the water was a little choppier than the previous day, so I was naturally a little apprehensive to go faster than usual, creating somewhat friction between me and Len. But nevertheless we powered through me and my canoeing partner, Adrian, and made it to lunch, where we stopped on the banks just after a caravan park. The weather was still good around lunch so we stopped a little longer than usual.

The last leg before the dam was easily the best experience of the whole trip, because of the current and wind on our backs, it created a lagoon type pool where we lazy river down towards the dam, putting a little amount of work in which was nice because we got to enjoy the views and communicate with each other.

The rest of the day consisted of walking to TrolAktiv along the waters they use for the white water rafting, where we would be staying the night and sitting altogether, sharing memories and experiences with the occasional deep conversation.

White waters

Wednesday

The previous night we had all discussed whether it would be better to risk the weather and continue the week as planned, or bail out and continue back home, all 90km, in one journey. We chose the latter option and headed towards Kristiansand around 0900 from TrolAktiv, just outside of Evje city centre. I started off really strong, keeping up with the rest of the group easily and chatting happily for the next hour or so, but after me and Saedis swapped control of the bag I became very tired and it was obvious to the rest of the group that I was struggling to keep up the same speed. After dividing some of the bag up between the group, and Saedis taking the bag back, it became apparent that it was too late, my legs had become very tired and my speed dramatically reduced, adding the factor of hills and my morale was a rock bottom.

After lunch at 1330 at the hydro power works, we set off again on the final leg of the journey, which would take us to 1630, still quicker than the last week’s group, a silver lining almost. Coming up to this point it became very hard for me to catch up with the group, my little experience of long distance biking was very obvious, and not even the help from my extra padding was serving any rest bite.  Once again I had become the burden for my group, adding another notch to the amount of times they had to wait for me to catch up in three and half months of the course.

Overall the three days was up and down with emotions and memories, I would treasure the fjord trips and the overnight on the island, but relish the thought of the cycling and how badly I had done.